The Age of Empire

1875-1914

De: Eric Hobsbawm

Narrado por: Hugh Kermode

Eric Hobsbawm discusses the evolution of European economics, politics, arts, sciences, and cultural life from the height of the industrial revolution to the First World War. Hobsbawm combines vast erudition with a graceful prose style to re-create the epoch that laid the basis for the 20th century.

©1987 The Trustees of the Eric Hobsbawm Literary Estate (P)2020 Tantor

Rapturous history

Hobsbawm is well known for his deep knowledge and piercing insight. To these he brings an rich and rapturous descriptive style to this history of the belle epoche.

Superb Overview of the 40 Years before WWI

An excellent view into the late-19th and early-20th history of European thought, politics, arts, and sciences. Wonderful narration as well. A must-listen for history nerds, along with Hobsbawm's other 3 works in his tetralogy covering 1789-1991.

Muy recomendafo

Los 4 libros de E. Hobsbawm deberían ser leídos para entender mejor el presente. Muy recomendados.

Endlessly engaging, gripping, insightful history

The reader perfectly matches and brings out the meaning, drama and poetry of the text. The history is alive, the perspectives feel fresh even today. Makes me want to dive into reading about the era. Got me thinking about a numerous questions anew.

well organized and magisterial

this book is extremely well organized and well written. there are many beautiful turns of phrases and The narrative drives along like a freight train. is not too fast, but you do feel the inexorable push towards his conclusion. unlike a lot of these kind of high-level histories, there is enough detail, but it doesn't get bogged down in extremely abstract ideas. ideas. he does an absolute masterful job. the narration is also enjoyable to listen to. Great book.

The magisterial Hobsbawm

The idea that history in our culture is too often written from an unfounded set of biases about classes and the history of capitalism is little known. Hobsbawm shows what a balanced left historical perspective can achieve. Undogmatic and circumspect in his analysis, he nonetheless presents an account of the past 200 years (in his four volumes) that includes much that is left out of more blinkered approaches to historical research. On top of this, he is simply a superb writer.

I could not get through it

This book is about a time period which I know almost nothing about. I recently listened to a book at WWI, so I was really interested.

I listened to about 2 1/2 hours and I just could not go any further. It is really just a dry survey of facts.

After the first hour I thought, "well, this is the setup. I guess some context is good, but when does the 'meat' start?" Answer, it never did.

I listened to about 2 1/2 hours and it was all just survey and overview... so I skipped ahead several chapters and it was more of the same.

Not for me.